A poem of a different sort, but a poem which I also think
is about obsession and survival, a poem about a wolf.
It's called The Wolf's Journey.
Cold began chewing through the fur.
The small bones broke.
Bright teeth caught at the light which turned against him.
He kept on.
Wind entered the eyes, got hold of his voice
and fled back through the throat.
He kept on.
At the edge of the ruined stream beneath the stone mountain,
hunger took over and he stumbled into his shadow
which covered him, which sank deep, found the heart,
and ate it.
Snow fell, thinking to complete its own work,
but the shadow rose out of the wolf.
It lay alone on the surface of the snow,
eyes opened inside it turning the light away,
shaking off the wind.
Cold arrived, the shadow chewed it up.
Sleep arrived, the shadow broke its back.
And when the wind returned offering to make a deal,
the shadow struck it down and pulled out of its mouth
the voice of the wolf.
Save yourself, the voice said.
The wind escaped, the shadow looked around.
What was supposed to happen next?
The shadow looked around and everywhere it looked,
it saw only itself and heard only its own voice
coming back through the dark asking the same question.